man…i just spent what felt like an hour, but was really closer to 10 minutes trying to figure out why my application was behaving in a certain way. the answer seemed obvious. i thought it should be an easy fix. but then it got more complicated. i couldn’t figure it out and i was getting increasingly frustrated. i nearly lost it and admitted defeat, but finally i figured it out and it all made sense.

no more mystery about why my program was behaving oddly. no, there weren’t gremlins sneaking around in my computer making it act funny. no, there wasn’t some kind of mystical magic that took over my code and made it do things i didn’t ask it to do. no, there was an answer and it feels really good to have figured it out, yo.

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i was once talking to a friend of mine and he was telling me that one of the things that he could not stand about some people is how superstitious they were. he thought that it was completely ridiculous that you would have to, for example, consult a special calendar to see what day would be a good day to get married on. he found it completely ludicrous that people believe in hexes, voo doo, or bad luck if you do certain things.

i think that superstition is a relic of the uneducated. sometimes it’s fun to humor superstition, but there are people who believe that they are cursed and they have to do these drastic things to lift a curse off of them, and i don’t get it. there’s no scientific evidence that says that houses can be cursed and that bad things will happen to you if you live in a cursed house. i just don’t get it.

superstition is an easy way to blame your coincidental misfortune on some kind of mysterious force. i think what it really does is that it lets us place the blame somewhere and it lets us cope with these difficulties. it also gives the power back to us to allow us to do something about our recent misfortune so that we can feel that we’ve done something to make our lives better.

this sort of ties in to the notion of karma. my mom is a big believer in karma and she’s a steadfast pacifist. she believes that if people do bad things to you, they will suffer later in life. and that’s her salvation. she believes that there is this karmic force that will make everything all ok. i don’t believe that this is true, but i do believe that you should always try and be the best that you can be.

there are a few people in my life who i really admire. the one quality that they all share is that they are genuinely decent and good people who aren’t looking to find profit in others. they are good people because that’s just the way they are.

i remember this one guy who i met for a very brief moment. perhaps it was only in the span of a weekend, but he extended to me the generosity of a giant. he didn’t know me at all, but he welcomed me into his home. he fed me, he made me feel welcome amongst strangers. he probably doesn’t even remember me. he probably doesn’t know what kind of an impact he’s had on me. he probably doesn’t think anything of it…because it’s just in his nature to be very kind and generous. there aren’t too many people who i’ve tried to emulate in my life. i think that i’ve always tended to be independent, but after i met this guy, i realized that he was the kind of person that i wanted to become.

think positively about everything, make best of the situation you are in, and try your best. don’t try to blame others (animate or inanimate) on your misfortunes, don’t dwell on what could be, don’t live in regret. just keep moving forward. that’s what i learned and that’s what i take with me.

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the power went out at the office today. no internet, no computers, nothing. so i sat at my desk trying to find things that i could keep myself busy with while the power was out. it was kind of fun. the whiteboard was used a lot and i started drawing out all of these grand plans.

it’s weird being so dependent on power. there wasnt much that i could do, so i just sat around after all of the whiteboard space was used up and i couldn’t think of anything else to design. so i sat there and just looked at my whiteboard mess.

but the power is back on and so i’m back to my life of coding.

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ah, silly me. i left my camera at work instead of taking it with me to dinner so there’s no picture from my dinner with maureen. oh well. we decided to eat at krung thai, one of my favorite thai places. it was good to see maureen again. we got caught up on each other’s lives. it’s amazing how much things have changed since we last saw each other.

dinner at krung thai was good. i haven’t had thai food in a while. i got my favorite panang curry dish….mmmmm. i have been craving rice lately. after my trip to north carolina, i’ve been on a bit of an asian food kick. i think it’s because i didn’t really have any good asian food while i was there, so i’ve been feeling the effects of withdrawl.

i’m still on east coast time so i’m waking up early and feeling tired early. i think i’ve been falling asleep around midnight every night. very unusual for me. i wonder how long this’ll keep up.

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is there such a thing? i remember growing up, i used to think that my dad used to work way too hard, but now that i look at myself, i see that in my professional career, i’ve clocked in some pretty crazy hours myself. i never thought that i would end up like that. i never really wanted to be like that, so i’m not sure how it is that it turned out like that. it’s funny how things work out.

so it makes me wonder if we have some kind of predisposition to be like our parents, even if we didn’t really want to be like that. they say that there are patterns that people follow. that is, if you were in a household where the father figure was abusive, you may turn out to be abusive or take abuse and think it’s ok.

i wonder just how true that is.

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last night i was reminded of something that saddened me a little. i was reminded about how easily it is that we can fall out of touch with our friends. if you don’t make an effort to keep yourself up to date with the, i guess it is true when we say “out of sight, out of mind.”

i’ve been trying to make up for it and with my recent injury, many of my nights have freed up as a result. last night i had burritos and pearl tea with dardy at la bamba and verde. at one point it was just the two of us alone at verde while the staff was amusing themselves by singing karaoke to music videos. the singing was bad.

tonight, i’m trying to meet up with my other friend, maureen. we see each other about twice a year, i’m afraid. it’s kind of sad, i wish i saw more of her, she’s one cool girl. we bumped into each other the other week at the cupertino village, so it’ll be nice to catch up with her.

i’ve come to a realization the last few weeks. i’ve been falling out of touch with some people who i really wish i wasn’t falling out of touch with. i know i haven’t been trying as hard to stay in touch with people, and that is my fault. i’m trying to rectify that, but i have to admit that after leaving work, it’s hard to be motivated to do anything else when you are so tired. maybe i should try and not let the days drag on so much.

and later this week, i’ve invited my favorite newlywed couple to poker night. that should be a fun night. i haven’t seen chris or siam in ages. i wonder if they look the same. maybe married life has changed them forever. i’m trying to remember when the last time i saw them was…it could have been their wedding! wow.

there are other people who i do want to keep in touch with and i do feel rather disconnected from them. i know that my friend, jason, told me once that he felt like he knew all of the things that were going on in my life because he is kept up to date by reading my page. i felt the complete opposite because i had no idea what was going on in his life.

until today, i thought that you cannot mess up a root beer float. there are too few ingredients and too few combinations possible where you could make a mistake. but i was wrong. i tihnk that depending on the root beer that you use, it rather dramatically changes the composition of the root beer float.

i think that i have a preference for barq’s root beer, but i haven’t had a&w for so long that i think i’m going to have to go buy them both to find out which works out better. just to note, the safeway select root beer does not work so well.

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